Prepaid Cards Increasingly Popular
New findings in the Javelin Strategy and Research report,Prepaid Cards and Products in 2012: Enabling Financial Access for Underbanked and Gen Y Consumers, reveal prepaid card use was up almost 18 percent last year and nearly 13 percent of the U.S. households own at least one prepaid card. According to the Javelin report, “Although ownership of mainstream financial products — such as a checking account, savings account, debit card or credit card — has measurably decreased over the past year, prepaid cards have uniquely grown year over year.”
So why, despite the often high fees charged by some issuers, do prepaid cards sales continue to soar?
To find out, the Pew Safe Checking in the Electronic Age Project conducted a series of focus groups aimed at better understanding the motivation behind prepaid card customers’ purchasing practices and decisions. Key findings included consumer use of prepaid cards to:
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